Imagine going through your daily routine. Maybe you’re having coffee, about to go for a roll with your dog, or you’re stressing about the million things you have to do today. And then you get a phone call: The largest funder of spinal cord injury programs and research in the country wants to give you $1 million, no strings attached. Just because they like you and like what you’re doing. No, you don’t have to do anything different or do any more work. Just keep doing what you’re doing, only here’s more money than you’ve ever seen to help you do it better.

As fantastical as it sounds, the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation did just that on Oct. 20 when it awarded its second annual Visionary Prize to three wheelchair users: Kim Anderson-Erisman, Wesley Hamilton and Alice Sheppard.

“We are honored and excited to award Kim, Wesley and Alice the 2021 Visionary Prize,” said Kym Eisner, executive director of the Neilsen Foundation, in a release announcing the winners. “All three embody the vision of the Neilsen Foundation and the dreams our founder had to enrich the lives of those affected by SCI. The Prize is awarded for contributions and significant impact they have already made and their potential to continue to inspire all around them as they do.”

Anderson-Erisman is a researcher at Case Western Reserve University who was a founding organizer of the North American Spinal Cord Injury Consortium. Her current efforts focus on more effectively getting SCI research beyond the basic science and out into clinical settings where it can benefit our community — work known as translational research.

Wesley Hamilton is the founder of Disabled But Not Really, a nonprofit in Kansas City that provides adaptive fitness training, along with various programs that support and empower minority communities. Their most recent program is a mobile gym that brings equipment and certified trainers into marginalized communities for adaptive and therapeutic exercise and instruction.

Alice Sheppard is an internationally recognized dancer and choreographer. Sheppard started her career performing for Infinity Dance Theater and Axis Dance Company before founding her own company, Kinetic Light, an intersectional disability dance ensemble that “promotes disability as a creative force enabling new understandings of the moving world.”

With $1 million each to continue their work, we can’t wait to hear what’s next for these three leaders in the SCI community.

Check out the Good Morning America video of Wesley Hamilton learning that he’d been awarded the Visionary Prize.